DEVELOPMET OF ULTRAOIC WAVE ODETRUCTIVE IPECTIO ROBOT WITHOUT COUPLIG MEDIUM UIG EMAT R. Murayama,. Makiyama, Y. Aratani and Y. Taniguchi Fukuoka Institute of technology, Japan Abstract: The ultrasonic wave is applied as an inspection method for the gas-holder and the pipeline in service. In such an inspection, the application of an automatic inspection system is desirable, because a manual inspection is difficult to accomplish perfectly and exactly due to its enormity, a so-called nondestructive inspection robot is then preferable. However, an ultrasonic nondestructive inspection robot with a piezoelectric oscillator needs to directly touch the material surface to be inspected using the coupling medium. Therefore, a mechanism where the coupling medium is spread thoroughly between the sensor and the material surface and where the sensor is always held at a constant pressure in the same on the material side to be inspected, are performances requested for the inspection robot. Actually, it is difficult to overcome this problem and the ultrasonic inspection robot could not be applied widely. We then tried to develop an ultrasonic inspection robot with an electromagnetic acoustic transducer (EMAT) which did not require the coupling medium, which inspected the circumferential parts in the pipe. We especially developed the EMAT to transmit and receive a -mode with high sensitivity and a H -mode plate wave without the influence of the welding bead alternately as the sensor parts. The fixed method between the pipe and the inspection robot was not especially fabricated, because the magnetic force of the EMAT was very strong and was sufficient for attaching the inspection robot on the surface of the steel pipe. The method in which the inspection robot turned around in the of the steel pipe surroundings was executed by observing the tape pasted in the of the steel pipe surroundings with an installed CCD camera. In this study, the basic mechanisms of this inspection robot and the examination results are described. Introduction: Generally, an angle beam method is used as the nondestructive inspection method of welded parts, but the precise depth and lateral scanning is absolutely required to cover the entire welded part as shown in Fig. (a). In addition
we must control any ultrasonic transducers so that they touch with a constant pressure on the surface of the steel pipe. A resolution of these problems is important in order to put an inspection robot into practical use. On the other hand, the inspection by a plate wave does not require depth scanning as shown in Fig. (b). In addition, we could supplement each method s good points and faults if we could simultaneously use a Lamb wave and a H plate wave. However, it is difficult to use a H-plate wave for auto-scanning inspection, as we must use a coupling medium with a high viscosity. We then wrestled with the development of an ultrasonic nondestructive inspection robot which carried an EMAT that could alternately drive a Lamb wave and a H-plate wave, because an EMAT can theoretically transmit and receive ultrasonic waves without any coupling medium. canning transducer Transducer Weld parts Pipe Weld parts transducer (a) method Transducer Plate wave Weld parts Pipe Weld parts (b) Plate wave method Fig. Fundamental concept of an ultrasonic nondestructive inspection robot Basic characteristic of a plate wave (H, ): The basic oscillation pattern of a fundamental plate wave (H and ) is shown in Fig. (). The H -mode plate wave as shown in Fig. (a) has a perpendicular oscillating in the advancing and is parallel to the material surface. Therefore, it is not influenced by the surface condition of the sample plate. ext, the oscillating components of the -mode Lamb wave shown in Fig. (b) mainly consists of the parallel to the advance. Therefore, we think that it is easily influenced by the surface condition of the sample plate and that the distance attenuation is large. Drive principle: The EMAT consists of a magnet that produces a bias magnetic field and a sensor coil that produces a dynamic magnetic field. The driving force uses a high frequency vibration of magnetostriction generated in the of the compound s magnetic field by combining the dynamic magnetic field generated by a high frequency electric current in the sensor coil and the static field by the electromagnet. Although the of the magnetostrictive change occurs in the of the slant to the of a sensor coil as in the case of the H mode plate wave shown in Fig. (a), the power ingredient, which causes the
magnetostrictive change, occurs in the space frequency to the of a sensor coil and in a perpendicular and is considered to be changed into the H -mode plate wave ()-(). ext, in the case of the -mode Lamb wave, the change in the magnetostriction occurred due to the compound s generated magnetic field being in a parallel to the traveling as shown in Fig. (b). This magnetostrictive change was converted into the -mode Lamb wave. Traveling Traveling Oscillation Oscillation Electric Current Dynamic magnetic field Magnetostriction ensor Coil ensor Coil Traveling tatic magnetic field Traveling Oscillation Oscillation tatic magnetic field (a)h plate wave (b)lamb wave Fig. Drive mechanism by the EMAT Experimental method: The sensor coil was incorporated into the structure as shown in Fig., so that the interval between the lead lines is mm; this sensor coil produced a plate wave of 6mm wavelength. Figure (a) shows the outline of the sensor system. There are two-sensor coils for the receiver and transmitter. These two sensor coils were placed parallel to the traveling of the plate wave having a mm distance between both magnetic poles. These sensor coils and two electromagnets are connected to the experimental system. When the H -mode plate wave was generated, the electromagnet in the Fig. (a) arrangement was driven and when the -mode Lamb wave was generated, the electromagnet in the Fig. (a) arrangement was driven. As a result, the magnetic field distribution in part of the sensor coil induced by one electromagnet might be influenced by the other electromagnet. Figure (b) shows the measured magnetic field density in the T- and V- by the driven electromagnet when electromagnet and electromagnet were placed on the mm thick steel plate or only electromagnet was placed on the mm thick steel plate. When electromagnets and were on the plate, the T- magnetic field density decreased by % and the V- magnetic field density increased by about % compared to the magnetic field density when only electromagnet was used. We considered that this result does not significantly influence the measured received signal by the H and -mode plate waves.
ensor head Electromagnet Pulsar Electromagnet Electromagnet Receiver (a) ensing system Electromagnet witch Power upply T M agnetic feild density (m T ) 6 8 6 T ( ingle) T (Double) V (ingle) V (Double) Magnetic pow er (A.T) (b) Magnetic field density of parallel and vertical Fig. Basic EMAT driving system and the measured magnetic field between the magnetic poles Basic performance of the EMAT: In order to check whether an alternating generation of the two plate wave modes could be realized by the same transducer, the following evaluation tests were then carried out using.6mm thick plates as shown in Fig. (a). Although the optimum magnetic current of the H-plate wave is different from that of the Lamb wave, we could confirm that there is a drive condition that we could detect in both a Lamb wave and a H-plate wave. The waveform of a H-plate wave and a Lamb wave is shown in Fig.(b) and (c) (). i g na l Ampl i t ude ( mv) 6 8 6 H Drive Condition Magnetic current (A) (a) Relationship between signal amplitude and magnetic current ignala m plitude(v) - - - - Thin plate Transmitted signal Transit T ime(μs) (b) Waveform (a) H -mode of H -mode plate wave Fig. Basic experimental results EMAT ignala m plitude(v) - - - - - Width Transmitted signal Transit T ime(μs) (C) Waveform (b) -mode of Lamb wave Basic characteristics of both plate wave modes: Figure (a) shows that we confirmed the relationship between the reflected signal amplitude from the edge of the plate and the plate
thickness. We confirmed that the signal amplitude of both modes decreased as the plate thickness increased, but its variation in the H-plate wave was smaller than that of the Lamb wave. This feature is effective for inspection on a manufacturing line where the plate thickness is always variable. We then confirmed the relationship between the reflected signal amplitude from the drilled hole and the diameter as shown in Fig. (b). With regard to the defect size, the signal amplitude of the H -mode plate wave remained almost constant as compared to that of the - mode Lamb wave. The influence of the surface condition of the plate was investigated using a mm thick test sample whose area [mm(width) xmm (length)] was machined to give a rough surface as shown in Fig.(c). The signal amplitude decreased for the H -plate wave as the surface condition became rougher. On the other hand, for the Lamb wave, the signal amplitude increased contrary to our expectation. By combining the information from the Lamb wave and the H -plate wave, we believe that quality assurance can be attained. Thickness ignalam plitu de (V ) 8 7 6 H Thin plate Plate thic kn e ss (m m ) (a) The relationship between the signal amplitude and the plate thickness ignalam plitude (V ) 8 7 6 Drilled hole EMAT H Hole diameter (mm ) (b) The relationship between the signal amplitude and the hole diameter Fig. Evaluation of the sensitivity ignalam plitude (m V ) 6 8 6 EMAT Thickness Fine C om m on Rough urface status H (c) The relationship between the signal amplitude and the surface roughness Mechanical device and running test: Cylindrical rails are generally used in order for the inspection robot to stably move around a steel pipe. However, if that is the case, an enormous preparation time is required and the cylindrical rails must be changed according to the diameter of the pipes. Therefore, we attached white tapes with a high reflection ratio in the circumference of a steel pipe and devised a mechanism which followed the white tape top using a one dimensional charge-coupled device camera. The charge-coupled device camera has 8 channels, with a.mm width for a single element. We then built an algorithm from which the output of an element from a central part of the charge-coupled device camera became the maximum in order for the inspection robot to turn by adjusting its position on the pipe as shown in Fig. 6(a). We then executed a driving test on a steel pipe with a diameter of 7mm. The attractive force for the steel pipe used the magnetic force of the electromagnet in the EMAT. We were then able to confirm that the inspection robot could go around a steel pipe. The robot also carried a piezoelectric oscillator type ultrasonic transducer for reference evaluation. Figure 6(b) shows the results. The EMAT was superior in comparison to the ultrasonic transducer with a piezoelectric oscillator for signal stability. However, the robot meandered through more than mm in the axis. A possible cause is that the magnetic force could not be symmetrically set for a traveling car. Modification by the turnover rate of a tire did not work as a partial response to the problem.
Drive Circuit Multi Channel Amp. Target Tape canning 8ch CCD Position Counter Weld Part CPU A verage signalam plitude (V ).... static Runnig (a) Mechanical concept of the inspection robot Lam b wave (EMAT) H plate wave (EM AT) (Piezoelectric) (b) Evaluation of the running test results Fig.6 Mechanical concept of the inspection robot and evaluation of the running test results Conclusions: An ultrasonic inspection robot equipped with an EMAT that alternately excites the H-plate wave and the Lamb wave for steel pipes was developed. We found that mutual excitation was fundamentally possible. However, the experimental results indicated that different drive conditions are required for the Lamb and H-plate waves. We also confirmed that it is effective to combine the information of the received signal from both ultrasonic modes with respect to the detection of a defect. However, further improvement on the detecting ability of the system is required, because the ability decreases, as the sheet thickness increases. The inspection robot could also follow a white tape wrapped around a steel pipe by experimentally controlling the one dimensional charge-coupled device camera, although the robot meandered away from the pipe welding line. References: () R.Murayama; Acoustic cience & Technology () pp.7-9 () () R.B.Thompson; Journal of Applied Physics 8() pp.9-9 (979) () E.P.Papadakis et al.; Proceedings of Ultrasonics ymposium pp.7- (99) () A.V.Clark et al.; Research in ondestructive Evaluation () pp.9-7 (99) () R.Murayama; Ultrasonics pp.79-76 (996)